On the 12th though masses of Beaufighters and B-25 go for the recently arrived AK's carrying supplies into Singapore. 3 AK are lost along with about 1/3 of the supplies... the cost however is high. In addition B-29 bomb Ayuthia, and our CAP does fairly good.

13 May 1944 Today the B-29 go after or Helens whcih destroyed the two armoured units over the last 7 days, and have been hitting his troops in the open outside Bangkok. We loose 48 Helen on the ground.

In an interesting event we loose about 30 fighters as they return in bad weather from LRCAPing Tf's off Singapore. All are lost on landing!

Indicators and Warnings Shipping movements continue in the DEI, our forces on alert.

Thailand We cause about 500 Casulties to the 7th indian Div siting outside Bangkok with our Helens. Then our airbases are smashed by the 4E in particular B-29. We are able to fly out about 90% of the bombers deep into Vietnam.

More of our forces get out of Uttradit in the centre, bit of a walk to Vietnam but the retreat continues in fair order.

Sumatra / Malaya North Sumatra is alsmost clear of Japanese troops. Soon he will be moving into the south and Palembang will be lost. He has stopped bombing the place, and we continue to pull fuel out of Oosthaven. There is about 20k in Fuel in south Sumatra. We are using xAKL to pull it out to Batavia.

Singapore has 1600 AV, 6 forts and about 50k in supplies.

East DEI KB is in strike range of any hostile movement. It will be reinforced with CV Zuikaku in about 7-8 days (almost fully repaired at Manila). CV Katsuragi is about 40 days away.

Reinforcements from the SWPAC area continue to arrive and get depoyed.

Several bdes are almost ready in Japan to be shipped out as well. The DEI will soon have an extra 500-600 AV.

OZ We continue to hold from Port Hedland to Darwin.

Pacific Pulling out of Tulagi / Lunga.

Rabaul is getting down to basics now.

Will start to pull back from Port Moresby.

China Almost in position to take Urumchi and its oil. Flying in BY units from Japan (buying them out first).

Force is building nicely on the Vietnam / China border as China is thinned out and shattered units from Burma are rebuilt.

Thailand Ayuthia next to Bangkok is swept by 300 odd fighters, no point in putting up CAP.

He then bombs with 300-400 strike aircraft. Being open hex, and still only level 5 forts losses and disruption is moderate. Soon he will cross... we will be lucky to hold out aday. Will try to move fighters up in a couple of days and try a mass defence... Will only last a day or two though.

Sumatra / Malaya

East DEI He is sending unescorted B-24 types to hit Ambon, will try to Ambush them...

OZ

Pacific Continue to pull troops frm the SWPAC back to the DEI / Philipines

China Getting close to taking the last couple of bases in far north China.

Thailand The air assault continues on Ayuthia. We suffer over a 1000 casulties a day. Have begun to focus a force of 300-400 fighters, mostly Frank, to have a go at defending the place...

A couple of divs have pulled out of Uttrradit, and are now in a hex with the Chindits, who have tried to work our flank. The Chindits have been battered several times in the past... Will send in bombers and try for an attack... Ground combat at 59,57 (near Pisanuloke)

Thailand We sweep over the Chindits in the air and on the ground :) This is good as I'm always concerned about these guys being dropped on our retreat route to China. Now our divs will have to continue to march out...

Thailand The aircraft we had on sweep over the Chindist last turn now sweep to good effect! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 77th Chindit Brigade, at 58,57 (Pisanuloke)

China In the mountains on the west flank of the Chinese bastion we have flanked these troops, forcing Andrew to pull some back. With some air support we managed to get the combat results we need even in the mountains... Ground combat at 70,45 (near Tsuyung)

As Andrew doesn't want to trigger Kamis again I suspect he will try to now isolate Bangkok rather than attacking it directly. We have a div in the rough country east of Bankok, which protects the rail and road line, to halt this (or at least force him to do it with a lot of force). This should give us time to pull out shattered units via rail back to northe Vietnam / China border area.

Thailand Figuring that Adrew would be a bit complacent after his victory, but certain of attacking Bangkok from the air, and despite the airfield being moderately damaged we decide to send in around 300 Frank and 100 George... the results are pleasing, our air losses are around 100, abut only 15 pilots, his are higher! Here are some of the combats. We fail to really get into the bomber stream though and loose a lot of aircraft on the ground. The overall loss ratio of 1:1 is acceptable. His losses wold have been higher as he only sent in the B-29 to Bangkok, and used his other strike aircraft to hit other random bases (doing little damage).

Our air combat capability in Thailand has now culminated and aircraft are withdrawn back to the Vietnam / China border. In addition transport aircraft, and training units based around Saigon are withdrawn back to begin the next stage of withdrawel, and to keep our strike capability intact. We need to to a major reorganisation of our fighter force. We have plenty of pilots about to come online to fill out the fighter squadrons. The bomber force has hardly been affected.

He sends in lightly escorted B-25 to hit Georgetown, will do a CAP trap.

East DEI KB remains poised (now with Zuikaku) to intercept any invasion atempt on Java.

OZ

Pacific

Uttradit is still not attacked, Andrew appears happy to just bombard, maybe he is expecting us to withdraw all the force? However there is almost 500AV of Thai's, many of whom go in about 70 days, so we intend to try and hold as long as possible.

Air Reorganisation Have started going through our air units. Pulling out fighter pilots, creating an "advanced" training pool of units (for thouse pilots with around 65-70 air skill, 55-60 defence but less than 50 exp). These units will be 50% CAP 50% training to bring the pilots up to front line ready status, while defending the Home Islands.

We have units in China for air defence of the oil centres where pilots can gain exp prior to being deployed into more active theatres. These have been culled and pilots replaced to maintain the flow of good piots.

Importantly we've converted a number of bomber units to FB (mainly to protect depth bases in China from 4E attack). Now have oodles of experianced bomber pilots... have been reluctant to commit them much... but with such a depth of pilots and planes, and plenty of units, we can use them a bit more aggresively...

Have also reorganised our recon units. China had an abundance, so they have been redeployed to look for suitable targets for our bombers to try to hit... maybe even our paras...

The IJAAF is in really good shape, 500 Frank in the pools, about 200 reserve of useful pilots (with around 300 moderatly useful) for the fighters and a similar amount for the bombers.

The IJNAF has no spare pilots, no spare George and only a relatively small pool of A6M5b... The strike aircraft fleet and pilots are now rebuilt back to a useful level, and in a few weeks we should have a useful pool of pilots, although we are still critcally short of Torp capable aircract (Jill, Nell, Frances). KB though is in pretty good shape pilot and plane wise.

As a consequence the IJNAF is largely being kept back in a defensive role over the oil producing sites and Singapore, while the IJAAF is being used offensively or where high losses are expected... the problem is we have lots more IJNAF units... and not enough IJAAF, looks like this balance doesn't change much.

Overall the combat air units have an average exp of low 60's to mid 70's with enough depth to maintain this for a while.

Soon there will be two important changes to our air units. The Torpedo carring Peggy is 2-3 months away. This will require a lot of retraining of aircrew but will take presure off the IJNAF strike capability and will utilise many of our spare bomber units. The Grace is 4-5 months away, this will have less of an impact as we have a decent build up of Torp qualified pilots, most of whom also have similar DB skills, although some retraining of the DB pilots will be required.

The Shinden and Ki-83 research (late war fighters for the IJNA and IJAAF) are progressing well.

IndoChina Our withdrawel from Central Thailand is going well. Soon Andrew will relaise that we are leaving a considerable force behind in Uttradit... by then the important units should be out of danger, although some are going to have a tough jungle walk.

Around Bangkok we soon expect him to start moving around Bngkok to isolate the road and rail. This will be too late to stop us gettinhg the divs out, we will leave behind some Mixed bdes which can be pulled out by air.

Most of those forces are going back via Saigon where they then move via Rail to the Vinh on Lang Son line, are shipped to the DEI / Phillipines or air transported to the DEI.

The Vinh line is going better than expect and now the intent is to try to hold this for some time. A couple of reasons, ther are some really battered divs in China that need time to rebuild and train to become combat ready. Recent success in China is also freeing up units to be redeployed to the Lang Son line, therefore allowing Vinh to be held in greater strength. To hold Vinh we need at least 2000 AV, that should be possible now.

G'Day Wuffer, both our losses have been at worst moderate. He claims not to have an excess of modern fighters, although he can probably put 800-1000 in the air. We have around 700-800. He probably has an equal number of second rate (by 1944 standards) P-40k class, we have alsmost none. His pilots were in a better position than us, although now I think we have a slight edge as we have carefully preserved and nurtured them. He has huge numbers of strike aircarft, although he may not have much of a pool behind them.

In the last two months we have gone from being unable to have air parity for a day, to now we can do it for almost 2 days. I doubt we can generate that over an enemies airfield though... so we continue to carefully pick and choose our fights while the ground troops slow him down.

Cheers Rob

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

em, just another annoying noob question: How many ac may he has left atm? 16,000 + downed machines and pilots should really have an impact.

Strategic Priorities Am really planning at the moment, have about 3 divs worth of troops in the Home Islands that are ready to be sent out, and more places to send them then there are troops! So trying to capture thoughts.

Priority 1 - Fuel We need to keep the fuel flowing for "as long as possible"... still not sure what success looks like... based on worse case we need to have fuel flowing from Borneo until at least the start of 1945... about six months, which is going to be a tough ask...

Factors The recent capture of around 100 oil points in China (which we now need to defend) gives us a little bit more wriggle room. With the oil and refining facilities in China / Mancuria / Korea we have enough oil to make fuel to keep the approx 750 HI in this area operating and may have a small fuel surplus. This is a positive and will probably stop us from total collapse we face post mid 45 keeping us in the war until the end.

The oil / fuel centres on Borneo, and to a lesser extent Java (because it is too easy to land on) now need to be the focus of defensive investment. We need to try to keep the Allies 19 hex (escort range of the longest range fighters) from these sites, once it is less than 14 then more fighters and the medium bombers start to come in range.

Priority 2 - Supply The supply is needed to rebuild shattered units (I suspect it may soon be time to no longer rebuild units, as many extra units are in the pipeline already), keep our air training and fighting and to build defences.

As we have already turned off about 15-20% of the total HI (in the home Islands) supply is starting to be a problem to manage. Getting the balance right is a continuous process of re-evaluation.

Priority 3 - Maintain a credible Fleet I assess a key thing keeping Andrew slow is the fact we still have a credible fleet. In fact over the next 60 days half the damaged BB's and the rest of the damaged CV's come back on line, and another and last CV arrives. This is a blessing (having the combat power) and a curse (the fuel the fleet burns). We have the ability to badly hurt any invasion that doesn't have the full weight of the Allied CV's behind it.

However once the fuel of Borneo is lost then the fleet can't move, and is no longer credible.

So everything is now pointing to the need to defend the oil facilities of Borneo from 14-25 hex out... and where we now need to increase our investment of troops and supply.

This also becomes the line where we really need to commit the air and naval strength, no point in holding the navy back in particular, may as well loose it in action then have it caught in port imobilised due to a lack of fuel.

Quick update, Andrew has been hit by floods and rain and was without power for 24hrs and out of internet. I've been in Canberra for days of meetings...

Around 3 divs of bdes and a couple of second rate full divs are on the way from Japan to Java. Analysis shows that holding Java is key to keeping the fuel flowing, and a lot of cbt troops have recently arrived.

Our troops are withdrawing in good order from Central Thailand and our defences at Vinh and Long San continue to grow in strength and depth.

We ambush B-25 in China (Flying from India) getting 25 for the loss of 6 Frank.

Over Koepang we LRCAP with KB and some Tojos and get 15 PB4Y and 2 Liberators for the loss of about 8 Tojo and 6 Zero.

Overall we loose 32 aircarft to 42 for the turn (with other ops losses arond the place) but only loose 12 pilots, a great return.

Thailand See below for overall outcome. Loss rate is about 1.5:1 against, but don't loose that many pilots, and four more aces are made. We are pulling out of Bangkok now as fast as we can now that he is defeated our blocking force, was hoping it would last at least a day... masses of enemy bombers (over 300 B24, B25) make the difference.

During this period Andrew launched 3.5 operations with no tactical warning across the map.

Oosthaven Supported by his main CV force Andrew landed direct onto Oosthaven (southern tip Sumatra) with close to 2000 AV. In the process he lost 2DD and 3 APA to mines and collisions when our PT boats sortied. KB was in a fair position and launched around 120 Jill with 120 Zero on escort. We managed to penetrate the CAP however FLAK was furious and not a single hit was acieved :(

Seeing KB and having the bulk of his ships unloaded he fled north again (running over and sinking 3 of our subs in the process). Finally our fightes from Java swept Oosthaven achiving around 1:1 kill ratio and around 40 aircraft on each side.

Overall a bit of a suprise, however much better than if he had landed this force on Java! There reinforcements are still arriving and the place is still lightly held.

Recently B-29 hit the oil at Sorebaya destroying about 50%.

Timor He has landed at Lautem, next to Dili, with around 1500AV after systematically closing the airfields in the area. Lautem was lightly held and after 3 days he finally attacked and took it.

In the process though he lost 2 CVE to subs.

Dili has about 250Av behind level 6 forts... so it will hold for a bit.

In hindsight we should have reacted KB this way rather than at the force landing on Sumatra, but I was concerned he may land on Java. Namlea in support of the landing at Lautem he para landed onto Namlea, island next to Ambon. This was a level 2 airfield where we occasionally supported Ambon by providing CAP. He has flown out some of the troops and is flying in airunits, we are supressing the airfield for the moment and shooting down transports... Need to close this down as it nullifies Ambon a bit. Marcus Island The final op saw around 2 divs of combat power land on Marcus supported by strong CV and bombardment forces, the garrison only lasted one day :( mainly due to the air strikes.

Our Response The focus is still Java.

We continue to pull back in Thailand.

However using recon we detected a lowering in the fighter cover over Sabang on the north tip of Sumatra and reports of over 50 ships in port so around 200 fighters supporting 200 bombers saw the following results: Morning Air attack on Sabang , at 44,70

2 - 13 Jun 1944 Work has been impacting me heavily, managing to just get a turn done a day or so, but no time to report. Will try to catch up. This post will be an overview, then some posts on each theatre.

Overview Nothing really dramatic has occured, we are under presure just about everywhere and cracks are starting to appear. Soon we will crack, probably in the DEI.

In the air losses are around 1:1 slightly against us. We have done some nice amubushes. Pilot losses are ok and the overall quality of the airforces continues to rise.

Our navy is largely intact still, starting to use it more aggresively now that the CA's are out of the yards, the BB's are almost out too. Recently a 6 CA and about 15 DD TF went against 6 modern US DD's we lost 1 for 6 (and minimal damage to our fleet). Have plans that will be discussed in the theare posts.

Our battered land formations are builing nicely and overall the withdrawel continues smoothly without significant loss.

Logistics The absolute key driver of everything now!

Andrew has been slowly reducing access to or destroying our oil.

About 70k of oil is on its way back to the home islands. That is about all the bulk oil we are now likely to get. This will make about 60k in fuel. Oil is ok in China, although the stuff at Urmchi in the far north is just sitting there (now 25k in oil and 20k in fuel).

Fuel is at 100 days in the home islands (about 1 million points). About 100k in on its way, and about another 100k to come... then that is about it.

We have heaps of resources.

HI is 1.4 million points and we are still positive 2000-3000 points a day.

Supply is at about 650,000 in the home islands, and reasonable everywhere.

The so what is soon we either need to turn off more HI OR continue to "run it out" until the bulk of the fuel is gone. I'm tempted to turn more off to set a "budget" to operate within... then eek out an existance.

Production Aircraft production is going well, although we continue to be hampered by the lack of Ha-43 engines for the last model of George. We have over 500 Frank "r" in the pool.

Naval production has been ramped right back, subs, DD's and PT boats about it now. Probably should cut more.

Overall not as comfortable logistic wise as we had hoped, but our combat forces are still strong, and we are just holding the Allied wave back.... for the moment.

After taking the bases around Bangkok he has put it under seige then move SE towards Saigon leading with armour. We have held him (just) at Battambang, a key choke point. We suspect he is low on supply as he is not attacking, even though he has the force. The bases behind here to Saigon are just about empty, just a couple of baseforces to support the occasional fighter LRCAP trap over Battambang.

Bangkok still has 300AV behind level 5.5 forts. He doesn't want to take it as it will again trigger Kami's. That is OK as it is continuing to produce HI from the stored fuel and resources, a nice bonus. We are flying out troops from here without behing hassled.

Saigon (not on the screenshot) is the main airbase, however only has about 300 AV and dropping as forces rail to the main line of resistance at Vinh and to the airbases at Hanoi and Haiphong.

We have a few units in his rear area just casuing him a few minor hassles, most are Thai's that will disappear in 48 days.

Overall he has around 6000 AV, so we should be able to hold him if / when he gets to Vinh.

The rest of Malaya is basically empty, almthough "storing" another 50k in supply in bases so it isn't all in Singapore. Johore Bharu (base next to Singapore) is the only place of even marginal strength. The last succesful raid from Malaya on north Sumatra (sinking a stack of ships in port) may get repeated if Andrew lets his guard down, so a few areas of air support are maintained with small levels of supply to enable an attack to ocuur at short notice.

West DEI He has basically cleared Sumatra, oly a few fragments of ours causing him some hassles, except we have retreted into Palembang with about 300AV behind level 6 forts.

Recently he has cleared, with losses, the mines at Merak on the west tip of Java, and shipping build ups indicates an attack may occur soon, OR he may now slip past Java to land on Borneo...

To attempt to stop this our fleet is being gathered with the intention to make a run up the open sea cost of Java to hit the big airbase at Oosthaven and any shipping gathering under its umbrella.

Java is in fair shape at the moment AV and supply wise, with decent levels of fighter and strike aircraft available, and the fleet in support.

On Borneo we have built up defences, however ther are too many empty bases that we can't hope to hold :(

The oil at Tarakan is destoryed, at Miri only a third remains, elsewhere we are holding off the B-29 who now have no "easy targets"...

He has around 4000AV in southern Sumatra and another 3-4000 in the north strung out.